Exactly five years ago this month, the Covid-19 virus was taking human root in Wuhan. The pandemic, stuttering reopening, dislocation, inflation, and geopolitical tumult that have all since followed have affected every company in the world – albeit in fragmented, often unpredictable ways.
Some have traded strongly, some have chosen reinvention, while others remain stuck in recovery. For investors, this has resulted in a wide dispersion of returns, sometimes within a sector or theme.
Take, for example, the broad business category of ‘food’, encompassing everything from production to distribution, retail, in-person dining and catering. For investors, there are many options here, so let's narrow it down to one food-based investment case that is roughly as relevant today as it was on the eve of the pandemic: the growth in global meat consumption in general, and pork in particular.